TG June Chat Thread: JuneJune's Bizarre Adventure

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Traditional Games > TG June Chat Thread: JuneJune's Bizarre Adventure

Effectronica: May 31, 2011; Fallen Rib

I have something to get off my chest. I've been carrying it around with me since the dark days of the second grognards.txt thread. Now, with one of the particulars absent and the other bearing the red text of shame...

quote:

To whom it may concern,

As a party in the case you submitted to the SomethingAwful dot c-o-m department, having laughed, chuckled, and, admittedly, guffawed at the description of the works of E. Stoop that incorporated the phrase "f*nfiction", I must question under which grounds you expect possible legal repercussions to come from. Considering the popularity of such works as 50 Shades of Grey, Sherlock Holmes Fucks The Author, the collected works of Cassandra Claire, and Light in August, let alone the continued existence of Naomi Novik, there don't seem to be any notable repercussions for selling f*nfiction, apart from the slings and arrows of derision and/or literary fame. To say the least, legal insulation from those two seems rather out of keeping with any human jurisprudence. Are you, perhaps, an extraterrestrial entity, operating a blog and misunderstanding the points of difference between Earthling law and Parvatomatisian law? In that case, I would be willing to assist in understanding the finer details. For hire, of course.

Yours,
Bill Ashbless, MMy

quote:

Dear S- G-,

Thank you for your swift response. Unfortunately, it is not satisfactory. We understand that you do not perhaps comprehend the matter completely so we will try to provide a more detailed description regarding the issue.

1. "Gau" has shared E. Stoops's private, personal information with the SA forum. Your rules specifically prohibit this with the following statement "Please do not post others' personal information (phone number, addresses, emails, etc.)." As E. Stoops' gender is deliberately kept private, this falls into the 'etc' category provided. This information is not available to anyone in the commercial sphere deliberately. However, Gau chose to share this information as he knows E. Stoops in real life. According to your own rules, this is a breech in appropriate conduct for SA members. We would like all references to E. Stoops gender to be removed.

2. Naomi Novik, Cassandra Claire, and the other examples you have cited are aberrations in the world of publishing. While it is obvious to any and all that 'dressed up fanfiction' has become a real moneymaker, most everyone accepts that in each of the examples you've provided, original content was dreamed up by the author and included to give at least the veneer of original fiction. That is, they are not selling characters under copyright in new adventures. They are selling expies. Which while essentially the same thing, legally it more or less automatically makes something NOT fanfiction, regardless of its roots. We are selling neither fanfiction nor expies Having work described as fanfiction creates a host of potential problems:

a. Anyone with a similar book could hit us with a law suit. They could bring up Gau's review as evidence that the work was recognized as fanfiction at this time. (This statement can build precedence.)
b. Any similarities with another work that appear later in the series could ALSO become cases that use Gau's words as evidence that the series deliberately aped other authors for monetary gain.
c. It brings all books under the umbrella of Small Tomaotes Press under suspicion, which means that anything else we publish by E. Stoops or anyone else that bears incidental similarity with another work could also be contested in a lawsuit citing Gau's statement.

Is this thin? Is this unlikely? Yes, right now it very much is. We accept that. However, we have to consider our future and in the future, it could suddenly become a big deal, especially in sue-happy America. We mean to be reasonable. We are not asking that Gau's assumptions regarding the author of blog posts be taken down, we are not asking that his remarks towards our blog be removed. The summary of the book, which is patently wrong, may also stay. We are simply asking that all references to the gender of our author and the word fanfiction be removed.

Thank you,

Small Tomatoes Press

To a dog, its mouth is just a handy-dandy low-tech sonic screwdriver attached to its face.

quote:

To the entity referred to as Small Tomatoes Press by Blogspot,

Well, I checked on this "Gau" character, and I discovered him in an SNES cartridge, but no matter how many questions I asked him using improvised Morse code, he just repeated the same things! I'm afraid that corroborating your accusations will require some more time, sir, madam, or elf. Since you obviously have some form of contact with him, have you considered trying for an out-of-court settlement? That may cause him to let something slip.

I would prefer it if you would use fewer obscenities in your responses. While I am a hardened person of the world and quite familiar with such words as "pr*vacy", "in*ppropri*te", and "f*nfiction", this is nevertheless a delicate machine and your initial email caused it to make distressing sighs and print out warnings that it was getting the vapors. Suffice it to say, to catch the motherfuckin' SOB will take a working Psylink Terminal (c).

However, I do have to warn you that it may take a matter of years to get such things as references to f*nfiction removed. Feral tribes of robots haunt the hallways leading to the servers, large parts of the software are run using surplus MULTIVAC and Difference Engines, and there are persistent warnings of the necessity of blood sacrifice to activate certain sections of the database. It's a huge mess, really.

That all being said, the use of "expy" may harm your case. There is a ruling pending before the 20th Circuit Court that would render the use of "tr*perisms" viable evidence to negate torts or even throw out criminal charges. I would sincerely recommend restricting your usage of such terms, unless you were using the colloquial abbreviation for "expressway", in which case I am very confused to learn that apparently William Faulkner sold roads to people.

Furthermore, and relating to my continued efforts at interrogating "Gau", in order to make these things stick and send him to Sing Sing for 20 to life, we're gonna need to prove credibility. Do you have any examples from your and/or E. Stoops' interactions with "Gau" to give reason for the court to believe him to be a credible authority on matters such as f*nfiction? Because if not, I'm afraid that you're going to have to make use of the "Public Domain" defense, or potentially even the "Third Punic War" defense. Might I suggest the "Journal of Submarine Commander von Forstner", as it bears sufficient resemblance (e.g. in the categories of submarines, bishonen, oral sex, magical powers, and the First World War) to your work(s) as to render it(them)[em]{eir} legally unassailable.

Also, given the apparent vulnerability of books to charges of f*nfiction, such that a man writing an obviously-inaccurate review can nevertheless threaten the entire credibility of your burgeoning publishing empire, have you given though to starting a campaign to tighten legal defenses and avoid future tragedies like this? I think that, for the sake of not only you, but all other authors writing y*oi sci-fi stories, it should be carried out.

Regards,
Scott Crane, III

Currently playing: A D&D 4e game, playing a bard. Ended up taking down a monster 8 levels higher nearly singlehandedly.

# ¿ Jun 1, 2014 06:06

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# ¿ May 20, 2024 02:21

Effectronica: May 31, 2011; Fallen Rib

Error 404 posted:

Ok, You gotta post a bit more context than that.

Ask Gau, but basically Gau posted a thing that made fun of someone for publishing their yaoi submarine fanfiction and she wrote an email to Lowtax, which he posted in the thread, which inspired me (along with alcohol) to send off an email.

# ¿ Jun 1, 2014 06:15

Effectronica: May 31, 2011; Fallen Rib

Captain Foo posted:

June reminder that Apocalypse World owns

Three books that are pretty much Apocalypse World personified: Tim Powers's Dinner at Deviant's Palace, The Skies Discrowned, and An Epitaph in Rust.

# ¿ Jun 2, 2014 04:12

Effectronica: May 31, 2011; Fallen Rib

SunAndSpring posted:

Playing: D&D 4e, some Vampire, and Numenera.
Running: Demon: the Descent, Numenera, and Dungeon World.

Really thinking of running a horror game. What systems are good for spooky poo poo?

Dread is probably the best single system for playing a horror movie or horror short story. The complete game is $3 right now, and the basic rules and scenarios are available for free. Play it.

Mors Rattus posted:

To be fair, Feng Shui's gun porn section is primarily about drooling over gun silhouettes.

And of course, the ugly Buro guns are just slightly worse mechanically than the better-looking modern guns.

# ¿ Jun 2, 2014 19:32

Effectronica: May 31, 2011; Fallen Rib

Mr. Maltose posted:

Tim Powers is basically the Writer In Residence for Apoc World, Unknown Armies, and 7th Sea. Dude's ridiculously good.

True. Anyways, since the ApocWorld thread is buried and moribund, I thought I'd throw this playbook I made after rereading Dinner at Deviant's Palace up here. It's fairly rough and in my opinion somewhat overly specific in emulation, but here it is anyways: the Redeemer, Mk. 1.

MadScientistWorking posted:

I've never really been able to figure out what genres of horror Fate won't work with. I know I can get it to work with certain genres quite easily but I don't know much about the genre itself to know where it breaks down.

Fate assumes character competence and power within the gameworld, while pure horror assumes that the characters are less than competent and/or fairly impotent when it comes to facing the threat. In other words, Fate assumes, by default, that you can punch Dracula, but in Dracula itself, nobody really has any hope of facing him physically and Dracula is able to evade their first few attempts to destroy him. Simply jacking Dracula's stats up doesn't really help matters either. You could probably hack Fate to do more conventional horror, but it's like using D&D as the basis for a French Resistance game. Impressive if you do it well, but still not as good as building it from the ground up would be.

# ¿ Jun 2, 2014 20:09

Effectronica: May 31, 2011; Fallen Rib

DocBubonic posted:

I think an important part of horror is that the players should feel that their characters are powerless in the face of some looming evil. Feel versus actually are. Having the characters be helpless isn't going to make an interesting game. There needs to be a solution that can be sought that would defeat the evil, so while the the situation is bad there's still hope for success.

The evil shouldn't be fully revealed either. In Dracula, most of the characters don't know what the danger is until near the end of the book. If the characters knew all about Dracula (what he is, where he is, and how to kill him) early on, they probably wouldn't be as scared of him. Instead the characters are witness to the threat's evil deeds.

I don't know Fate that well. I don't know if this is something Fate can do.

(I think a large part of running a horror game is less about the rules and more about what the GM does.)

Yeah. This is why jacking stats isn't meaningful- if the game pushes you to believe that you can overcome the threat, then you're just going to be frustrated when you arbitrarily can't do so. And this is something that is really dependent on the setup and GM prep for sure. You probably could do improv horror, but I don't know how effective it would be.

# ¿ Jun 3, 2014 19:13

Effectronica: May 31, 2011; Fallen Rib

ProfessorCirno posted:

The cap. This is a discussion happening at the Next thread, so I'll try to transplant it here.

AD&D - and OD&D - was built around the d20. Take saves for example. Roll a d20, try to roll above your save score. This means that every +1 translates out directly to a 5% greater chance of success. You look at your sheet, you see your save, you know precisely your chance to not die when a medusa stares at you and you aren't using a mirror or whatever. Same goes for skills - roll below your attribute, or attribute + NWP if you're using those. "What's my chance to run across this tightrope? It's 14/20."

Combat likewise was capped. AC started at 10 and ended at -10 (though a few special enemies, like the eldest of all dragons, could go past -10). THAC0, your chance to hit, started at 20 and went down to 1. I'm a fighter wearing platemail, giving me AC1, so I'm feeling incredibly tough, because AC1 is halfway to the cap and is a mess to hit.

3e's goal was to take all those different things and put them into one mechanic - which is good. Flat out, simplifying things down to a more basic mechanic when those multiple mechanics weren't adding anything is a good thing. But 3e took out the cap. Let's rewind.

AD&D, my fighter has a save vs death at 10. I have a 50/50 chance of succeeding - I know this. In 3e, I have a fort save of 7. What's my chance to succeed? I have no idea.

On top of that, taking out the cap made some number skyrocket while others...didn't. To use skills as the example, having a dex of 14 and a strength of 16 means I have a 14/20 chance to succeed at "dex rolls" and a 16/20 chance to succeed at "strength rolls." If I have a tumble of +15, a climb of +30, and a swimming of -1, what on earth are my chances to succeed at, uh, anything? Not only do I not know, but I have a character that can climb to the top of the mountains of hell, but drowns in a small puddle. Saves follow the same route - if I have a fortitude save of +20 and a will save of +4, not only do I not know my chances of succeeding in a saving throw, but I do know that I may as well not bother for will.

Then we hit combat and jesus christ. That platemail is now essentially pointless. There are so many bonuses and additions, and that platemail doesn't mean crap.

4e in some ways fixed this, and in some ways didn't. While not having any OFFICIAL cap, they did implement an unofficial one through their scaled challenges. Monster of x level will generally have x+/-y for their attacks and defenses depending on role. Skill checks of x level will generally have x+/-y for their DC depending on difficulty. That x+/-y was "the cap," so to speak, built to be on level with the player. The problem is that, well, it's unofficial and hidden; you still don't know your chances just by eyeballing yourself.

EDIT: To trace this back, AD&D was built into the D20. AC goes from 10 to -10; a track of 20. THAC0 goes from 20 to 1. Saves go from 0 to 20. Attributes go from 3 to 18. All of this follows the d20. But in 3e, nothing follows the d20. The d20 is just there because AD&D did it, and the math subsequently goes to hell because the d20 is super swingy on its own.

SECOND EDIT: to translate this to 3e, it's the equivalent of +20 being the highest any modifier to any dice roll can go, and 30 is the highest DC or AC possible outside of titanic challenges or enemies.

In addition 4e has swingier math. It's quite possible for two 30th-level characters to have more than the range of the dice between their basic attack modifiers because stats directly determine combat effectiveness. This is balanced by at-will powers for some classes, but not all of them.

# ¿ Jun 6, 2014 14:42

Effectronica: May 31, 2011; Fallen Rib

Gort posted:

Can you give us an example of this?

Yeah. Any class which can dump strength and doesn't get magic weapons or expertise feats will have +17 on strength rolls (-1 base, +0 at level 21, +15 for half level, +2 proficiency), while prioritizing strength, having a magic weapon, and expertise will get you (+5 base mod, +4 from increases, +3 proficiency, +3 expertise, +6 item, +15 half level) +36 to strength rolls. 19 different before I go through and find feats to give me a +2 feat bonus and take me to 21 different. This is extreme, but lesser examples crop up more often. (Bards, Swordmages)

# ¿ Jun 6, 2014 14:59

Effectronica: May 31, 2011; Fallen Rib

neonchameleon posted:

Hmm...

My total difference between a fighter (Knight) who was Str 20 at level 1, and a Wizard who was Str 8 at level 1.

+6 (base stat difference)
+3 (six boosts to Str for the fighter by level that went to the wizard's int)
+1 (Epic destiny stat boost)
+1 (Fighter weapon talent)
+1 (Sword vs staff)
+1 (Stance)
+6 (+6 weapon vs non-magical staff)
+1 (Misc bonus)

= +20

So yes it is possible. In theory. But let's look at the equivalent in 2E - Level 20. The Wizard has a Thac0 of 14, the fighter 0. The fighter is then carrying a +5 sword (because why wouldn't they?) and the wizard has a non-combat staff. We've now a 19 point difference even before we've taken strength and weapon specialisation/mastery into account.

Hell, level 10 in 2E is IIRC a 7 point THAC0 difference. Weapon Mastery brings that up to a 10 point difference. +5 sword (again - this time the fighter is a lucky sod). 15 point difference. Girdle of Giant Strength comfortably pushes us to a 19 point difference. At level 10.

Of course that's a lot of modifiers that weren't in oD&D. The claim that AD&D (post UA) is less swingy this way than 4e is thus shown to be risible.

that's true for the case I used, but the numbers are more modifiable in 4e. You can eliminate half the gap by magic weapons and expertise feats, yeah, but spreading your ability increases around and not using expertise feats can create significant differences in effectiveness between identical classes and gear. This isn't a factor in ad&d

# ¿ Jun 6, 2014 15:28

Effectronica: May 31, 2011; Fallen Rib

neonchameleon posted:

Unless using speciality priests...

And what is a factor in AD&D is that the thief and the 1e monk are both terrible classes as written. Especially at low levels.

I wonder if anyone ever used "priests of other mythoi" beyond making clerics who can wield swords. And yeah, the only cool thing about the 1e monk was the level titles.

# ¿ Jun 6, 2014 15:54

Effectronica: May 31, 2011; Fallen Rib

Tatum Girlparts posted:

I just love that you keep posting in this forum like we don't all know you're a literal thief but for some reason you gotta slam on one of the few people who actually wanted people to stop making GBS threads on you.

I just love all the dirt I'd have on you if remembering things about other posters wasn't in extremely bad taste and criminal.

TheLovablePlutonis posted:

I've read on the Mikan thing and I'm really appalled on his behavior. If there is something that this stupid dying industry who will not survive for the next 10 years needs, is artistic integrity from people who work on it.

Well, you know, the GOON MONEY well has run dry, so now it's time to get some of those sweet Paizobucks.

# ¿ Jun 8, 2014 00:11

Effectronica: May 31, 2011; Fallen Rib

Evil Mastermind posted:

Oh good, my Dungeon World GM wants to switch our game to Strands of Fate.

Mediocre implementation to mediocre implementation... sounds fine to me! :v:

But good luck anyways.

# ¿ Jun 8, 2014 00:16

Effectronica: May 31, 2011; Fallen Rib

SALT CURES HAM posted:

Can we just talk about elfgames and not have this ridiculous loving infighting between elfgame writers?

This is the chat thread. If you want to talk about elfgames you have to go to one of the many fine elfgame threads.

# ¿ Jun 8, 2014 00:42

Effectronica: May 31, 2011; Fallen Rib

Evil Mastermind posted:

But "he has Strands" and wants to turn the Eberron DW game where we play ourselves into one where we jump from game world to game world as ourselves.

I'm never going to play in a decent rl game.

Ahahaha.

Gau posted:

The irony of calling it my vanishing trick when I've been here, posting, after all of this time (including an attempt at a come-clean thread) and the dude who did take the money actually, you know, vanished from the forums is appalling.

Also, I wrote something like ten thousand words for Nightfall. It's funny how Mikan didn't want to use that. If he was upset that there was a Gau hate club, he might have started with the mirror.

Shut up before I regret throwing away ten bucks.

# ¿ Jun 8, 2014 01:08

Effectronica: May 31, 2011; Fallen Rib

Gau posted:

No, I've had this title for like, a month. Bring your A game though, if I get called out for being a tranny again people might get angry.

No, I sent money to your kickstarter, and I considered it worth it because someone has probably doubled, if not quadrupled, their investment by buying all those red titles, but if you keep whining that monetary value will go down down down!!

TheLovablePlutonis posted:

Wait what.

You missed that title, huh? It was pretty glorious. Too bad the avatar lookups don't include text.

# ¿ Jun 8, 2014 02:00

Effectronica: May 31, 2011; Fallen Rib

Arivia posted:

Oh no someone left the forums! GOON HONOUR over unrelated bullshit!!!

If Mikan seriously left over GBS 2.1 that's really funny, and I should dig up that pic from one of the old WoD threads.

Also, does anybody have links to both/either of Liesmith's Paladin threads?

# ¿ Jun 8, 2014 02:21

Effectronica: May 31, 2011; Fallen Rib

Adept Nightingale posted:

No, it's cool, you don't have to dig anything up. Who cares if someone left the forums? Why do you care?

I am a loving and great-hearted soul. Why wouldn't I care?

# ¿ Jun 8, 2014 02:27

Effectronica: May 31, 2011; Fallen Rib

Winson_Paine posted:

I think he meant Red_Mage, not Mikan.

Ask Mikan, I guess. This dumbass speculation drama is tiresome, and the fact that it gets dug up again every fuckin' month is moreso.

The "Etherwind giving Mikan posting tips" pic is dead with waffleimages anyways. Oh well.

# ¿ Jun 8, 2014 02:31

Effectronica: May 31, 2011; Fallen Rib

Arivia posted:

It's odd that you'd take any posting advice from someone who ate a 100,000 hour probation.

# ¿ Jun 8, 2014 02:54

Effectronica: May 31, 2011; Fallen Rib

Davin Valkri posted:

To change the topic, hey, anybody here often hit the same beats with the characters they make for these games? I'm full of bishies, doy, but Battlemaster likes aristocratic-y and slightly arrogant women, Plutonis seems to like petite, angry chibi-types, and Comrade Gorbash's characters are apparently "Almond from Cucumber Quest". Anybody else want to confess?

I usually play a comic buffoon, but in real life games. I don't PbP.

# ¿ Jun 8, 2014 03:23

Effectronica: May 31, 2011; Fallen Rib

Winson_Paine posted:

You are not one of our regulars, so welcome aboard! What do you usually play?

Right now I'm in a D&D 4e game and... nothing else. Hoping to start running/playing stuff more once I stop having to zip around two counties on a daily basis.

# ¿ Jun 8, 2014 03:35

Effectronica: May 31, 2011; Fallen Rib

Winson_Paine posted:

Consider PBP, we need more of those. 4e is super popular here still, too. It is UNCANNY

I've had some bad PBP experiences, but then again, I was mostly involved with running them.

# ¿ Jun 8, 2014 03:41

Effectronica: May 31, 2011; Fallen Rib

Winson_Paine posted:

I like to beat the drum for new PBP in general, while all my TG fellows are beloved in their gaming, PBP is what brought me here in the first place and you never forget your first.

Yeah, the maptastic nature of 4e makes it kind of a pain from what I have heard.

These were call of cthulhu and microscope, lol!

# ¿ Jun 8, 2014 03:48

Effectronica: May 31, 2011; Fallen Rib

Bigup DJ posted:

I keep hearing this around the place. What's sucky about DW?

In my opinion, as a game snob, Dungeon World is an interesting concept, but the intentions are entirely at odds with the mechanical base. Apocalypse World's engine is built around emulating fiction, while D&D has evolved into something very distinct from fantasy novels or movies. So they're working at odds. You can see this most clearly in the big difference between combat in AW and combat in DW.

# ¿ Jun 8, 2014 03:52

Effectronica: May 31, 2011; Fallen Rib

Kai Tave posted:

I don't have a particular aversion to casters or "support" type characters but most of the characters I play tend to be very direct and physically oriented, whether that means a 4E Monk or a cybered-up thief or a straight-up "hit things with an axe" fighter. I also tend to play characters with brash personalities painted in broad strokes...something I realized early on when I started roleplaying is that most RPGs aren't really nuanced and subtle works of high art and they have a tendency to end abruptly, so if you want a character that stands out in a memorable fashion it's better to go big right from the start and then backsolve for finer detail if the game progresses along. The few times I've tried playing silent and/or brooding types it's been really boring.

Brooding types might be fun if you had a) the right environment and b) you played it for comedy and had a selection of Bauhaus lyrics you used as default responses to everything or something.

# ¿ Jun 8, 2014 03:53

Effectronica: May 31, 2011; Fallen Rib

Mr. Maltose posted:

DW goes from an okay game to a great one when you look at all the fan works that twist or excise the residual bad cruft from the original product. The Playbook system lets you circumvent a number of missteps.

I would like to see playbooks that actually do this, because there are a whole lot of them.

# ¿ Jun 8, 2014 04:05

Effectronica: May 31, 2011; Fallen Rib

Mr. Maltose posted:

Pretty much every book from the Dungeon World thread is an improvement from the original playbooks, but a specific example is Fenarisk's revised core books which stripped out all the boring +1 moves with things with more narrative instead of mechanical heft.

This is pretty much the big list of SA approved cool playbooks for cool people, sorted by what cool things they do.

I'm not seeing a huge difference here between the Skald and Bard, or between the Fighter and Warrior.

Bigup DJ posted:

Ok cool, I was worried there was some kind of terrible sickness at the core of DW's mechanics which was loving it up. The only thing that sticks out at me is ability scores and the weight system, and I'd like to get rid of XP and turn Drives into Keys (Basically harder to fulfil Drives which level you up instead of getting you XP).

There is a sickness in the mechanics, but it's not one that will bug you for casual games.

# ¿ Jun 8, 2014 04:18

Effectronica: May 31, 2011; Fallen Rib

gnome7 posted:

If your problem is how it's way too close to its D&D base, I could give you a suggestion for fixing that. Here's some previews of the playbooks to go look at.

Nah, my problem is that the PbtA mechanics used in Volley, Defy Danger, Hack and Slash, etc. are inappropriate for something as zoomed in on combat as Dungeon World by default is.

# ¿ Jun 8, 2014 04:25

Effectronica: May 31, 2011; Fallen Rib

gnome7 posted:

I'm not sure I understand. Do you mean the moves need to be zoomed in more, made more specific for the nitty gritty DW wants, or that dungeon world needs to focus less specifically on the specifics of combat? Because from where I'm sitting the look pretty good for covering a play-by-play through a combat. If you mean you don't want to go play-by-play through a battle in a *World game, then yeah, I can see where your issue with DW is, but I think it's a lot of fun.

Well, I mean that in the base Apocalypse World game, having a 7-9 on a Go Aggro or Seize By Force roll involve a serious escalation works well because each Move is a major chunk of a fight. Even a big battle won't have that many Moves going on, since you'll have Gangs etc.

For Dungeon World, though, each move is a significantly smaller chunk of combat time, so having dramatic results for each 7-9 can quickly turn things into a drama spiral without the GM ignoring the base MC style of PbtA games and pulling the punches of their moves. This isn't game-ruining, but it is something that niggles at me.

# ¿ Jun 8, 2014 04:33

Effectronica: May 31, 2011; Fallen Rib

Mr. Maltose posted:

If people keep dropping 7-9s, you have a bunch of Soft Move options before moving on the applying Hard Moves, both inside H&S/Volley/DD and out. It's not really pulling punches when the rules specifically differentiate between a Hard and Soft move.

No, I mean that even the soft moves can create a spiral of ludicrous drama just because you can Defy Danger four or five times in DW where in the same situation in AW you would probably Act Under Fire once, maybe twice due to the different level of zoom. Getting a 7-9 each time can create some goofy situations where a pillar starts to fall onto the ration packs, then you drop them and they get caught on a ledge over the lava, etc. just from making location and danger moves in response to 7-9s.

# ¿ Jun 8, 2014 04:39

Effectronica: May 31, 2011; Fallen Rib

Mr. Maltose posted:

I suppose, but there is a reason Fiction First is the cardinal rule of PbtA. Eventually the GM can say it doesn't make sense to defy danger the fifth time, or fourth or third or whatever. Which is sort of the opposite of pulling punches, I guess?

But I can easily see why someone would think differently about that.

Yeah, but it's a weakness in the way DW operates, because you should be rolling Defy Danger/Act Under Fire fairly often in a classical dungeon-with-dragon. It's just that AW operates 90% of the time on a fairly abstracted scale where DW goes down to the nitty-gritty more often and that's where the Apocalypse engine starts behaving funny.

gnome7 posted:

...So? It's loads of fun when every little thing goes wrong and you keep holding on by the skin of your teeth and powering through anyway. That's what DW is all about.

Again, that's why I said people wouldn't even notice it. It's not like it turns DW into a fine Palladium product, I'd just like a good, fleshed-out PbtA game that offered up some options for fantasy novels.

# ¿ Jun 8, 2014 04:48

Effectronica: May 31, 2011; Fallen Rib

Kai Tave posted:

Yeah, I've never understood why, for example, people scoff at RPGnet all the time for getting infatuated with new "RPGnet darlings" or the like but what do you expect when you get a bunch of elfgame nerds in a shared space and a shiny new game comes out? Like you said, people getting hyped over stuff is a cool thing, and the DW hype has led to a whole bunch of homebrew playbooks and settings and other rad stuff so I dunno man, bring on the flavor of the month.

Hype is something that can get annoying, and prompt a backlash. Then we get the Hegelian synthesis of a consensus opinion, and all is well until the next cool game comes out. I hope that my attempt to build an RPG around Texas Hold'Em will achieve this someday!!

# ¿ Jun 8, 2014 04:52

Effectronica: May 31, 2011; Fallen Rib

Lemon Curdistan posted:

That's because you're literally looking at classes designed as variants of the core book classes with only a few moves changed.

Yeah, but those changes aren't significant. They still have a broad mix of straight mechanical boosts, story-focused boosts, and a few things you can roll for beyond the basic moves.

# ¿ Jun 8, 2014 16:32

Effectronica: May 31, 2011; Fallen Rib

head58 posted:

Going to Origins next weekend and I plan to spend a lot of time in the Games on Demand room. I haven't played most of the stuff listed as being available (http://www.indiegamesexplosion.org/2014/05/26/origins-is-almost-here/) only Burning Wheel, DitV and Night's Black Agents.

From what I'm seeing here it would be better to try Apocalypse World than DW. I want to try out a bunch of stuff to see what I want to bring back to my local group. How are Iron Edda, Montsegur and Night Witches? Any other "must play" games on the list?

Montsegur is emotionally intense to a very high level. Fiasco is a must-play game. Feng Shui 2nd, Fate Core/DFRPG/ARRPG, Ars Magica, Gamma World, and Edge of the Empire are all more or less conventional games which have fairly interesting approaches. Golden Sky Stories is worth trying out, as is Nobilis. Mouse Guard is a tighter Burning Wheel. Monsterhearts is also good if you want high drama and emotional intensity. Cthulhu Dark and Trail of Cthulhu both have interesting approaches to investigation/mystery gameplay.

# ¿ Jun 8, 2014 17:44

Effectronica: May 31, 2011; Fallen Rib

Lemon Curdistan posted:

Yes, it's why they're variant classes and not entirely new playbooks. You're going to have some trouble finding playbooks that don't do this, though:

Seeing as that's what PbtA moves are.

Okay, people were suggesting that the alternates were significantly different from the core ones in terms of having fewer straight mechanical boosts and more narrative-based ones, but I don't see any major differences on that front, which is where my confusion comes from.

# ¿ Jun 8, 2014 17:58

Effectronica: May 31, 2011; Fallen Rib

Arivia posted:

One guess, and their name does not start with O or Q.

Please don't Heckdump my ~~good~~ ~~okay~~ ~~friend~~ acquaintance Plutonis.

# ¿ Jun 10, 2014 06:31

Effectronica: May 31, 2011; Fallen Rib

Winson_Paine posted:

Although thank you for spelling my name correctly

I winced in pain.

Mors Rattus posted:

Mage Armor's kind of nuts, yeah. I mean, it totally obviates the idea of 'mages need prep time' because every Mage game I've ever seen has had a standing rule of 'yes, you can just say you put mage armor up every morning' as long as they could afford the mana.

There are so many ways to get the mana, or to obviate the need for it if you include some of the optional rules. We tended to include style casting because it was fun and cool and then it kind of broke the only thing keeping Mage Armor from being on literally all the time.

Hopefully the updated rule system cuts or significantly alters Mage Armor

# ¿ Jun 11, 2014 00:36

Effectronica: May 31, 2011; Fallen Rib

Reene posted:

It just needs to have a real, serious cost associated with it. Like maybe you can reflexively trigger it when someone attacks you and decide to spend 1 mana per dot of armor you want up to your dots in the arcanum for that one attack.

Yeah, that's expensive as hell, but at 5 dots mage armor is by far the best armor you can get in the entire game and it should be that expensive. Especially since in most games mana isn't hard to get.

I'm wondering if making it more like werewolf/vampire stuff would be better- downgrading lethal to bashing and agg to lethal. Of course this is an idle thought.

# ¿ Jun 11, 2014 01:55

Effectronica: May 31, 2011; Fallen Rib

DalaranJ posted:

What is Blood & Smoke: The Strix Chronicle and why is it the bestseller of 2013?

Is it like an adventure 'path' except for NWoD?

It's a rules update for Vampire: the Requiem combined with an "adventure path"/campaign ideas. It's a thing that White Wolf's descendant is doing with all of their lines. The God-Machine Chronicle updated the corebook, the upcoming Idigam Chronicle will update Werewolf, and the Fallen World Chronicle will update Mage. They also released a quick update for Hunter this year too.

# ¿ Jun 11, 2014 02:12

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# ¿ May 20, 2024 02:21

Effectronica: May 31, 2011; Fallen Rib

Tekopo posted:

But magick is still central to the game really, which is not something that I feel is central to something like D&D. Even knowing about the occult in UA fucks you up in unexpected ways and really if you wanted to do magic with very few drawbacks (although it is restricted as hell), you could even roll an Authentic Thaumaturge or just do ritual magic. You'll still have a considerable edge if you are a badass AND can use magic in some way. It's clear what the focus of UA is, which is why I think it excludes it from the 'caster supremacy' debate.

Or just be psychic, who don't have to worry about charges period.

# ¿ Jun 11, 2014 18:17

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Traditional Games > TG June Chat Thread: JuneJune's Bizarre Adventure

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